Bonfires Burning Bright by Jeremy Bishop & Kane Gilmour

Author:Jeremy Bishop & Kane Gilmour [Bishop, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Breakneck Media
Published: 2014-01-11T18:30:00+00:00

14

Brian Bartlett wished he’d stayed at the station house with Mary. Or better yet, that they’d both barricaded themselves in their market and waited out this mess. Although the place was called Soucey’s after Mary’s deceased father, and as a result everyone always thought of it now as her place, the store had become Brian’s home, too.

Mary had wanted to leave Refuge, and if she had, Brian would have followed her. But they had stayed and made a life here. And now something—some crazy thing that sent their town to horrific places—was threatening their lives and home.

Brian liked the life they’d made, even if he didn’t much care for his fellow New Englanders. He’d never told anyone—not even Mary—but he’d always planned to get out of town, too. But not without Mary. Not a chance.

Now, looking out at the dark night ripped alive by the soaring flames of the bonfires, he wished he’d grabbed her by the hand and dragged her off to California or Hawaii. Hell, Siberia would be an improvement.

He stood on the town line with four other men. He’d known them all his whole life, but he’d only ever really been friends with Jim Calloway. The others were guys he’d known, but never liked much. Frank Billings, Ted Drake and Billy West had all been jerks in school. As adults, they’d gotten worse. The only good thing about each of them was that their present circumstances had made them all serious and quiet.

The asphalt ended just past Brian’s toes. Below him, the eerie city of this world lay at the bottom of a sloping hill of dirt and rock, cast in high contrast black shadows and orange fire-light. The city was probably two miles away, cut off from Refuge by strings of rocks—if they were rocks—that ground up and down through the sediment, like giant whack-a-moles. He could hear the screaming. Despite coming from a great distance, it sounded loud here. Close. It sent a shiver up his spine every time he heard a fresh bout of the wailing on the breeze. This close to the city and the fires, the smoke was thicker, like a foggy morning before the sunrise. But the light from the fires illuminated the smoky haze, like lighting effects at a rock concert.

He could make out the walls of the strange labyrinth in the distance. Twisting and turning in and around, with protrusions here and there, like towers. Curving structures swept up and over the walls in places and dropped back into the maze in other places. For the first two hours of their watch, they hadn’t seen anything moving down there.

But that had changed.

A lone figure walked out of the main avenue of the labyrinth twenty minutes ago. They could see him through a telescope. He wore a white helmet of some sort. The details were lost in the smoke. He carried what looked like a long pipe, dragging it on the ground as he walked. Whatever it was, it looked heavy.

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